Beverage producing devices, such as brewing machines for producing espresso coffee, are well-known in the art. U.S. Pat. No. 4,681,028 discloses a device for the preparation of hot beverages, particularly coffee, comprising a brewing unit including a brewing chamber with a movable first brewing chamber portion and a second brewing chamber portion, designed to co-act one with the other in order to charge coffee powder in the first brewing chamber portion, closing the brewing chamber and brewing coffee by feeding hot pressurized water through the brewing chamber and the coffee powder contained therein, in order to extract the flavors from the coffee powder.
In these known devices the movable brewing chamber portion usually performs a rotary and translation movement in a vertical plane. In a first loading position the movable brewing chamber portion is placed vertically under a charging hopper, through which coffee powder is dispensed from a coffee grinder into a receptacle formed in the first brewing chamber portion. A certain amount of coffee powder or other bulk beverage preparing product is collected inside the receptacle and forms a conical bulk material heap. When the movable brewing chamber portion pivots from the loading position towards the brewing position, the tip of the bulk product heap is flattened by a scraper, so that the height of the heap is reduced by pushing the bulk material towards the base of the conical heap inside the receptacle before closing the brewing chamber, compacting the product and starting the brewing cycle.
In some conditions, part of the product loaded in the receptacle formed in the brewing chamber portion can fall out of the receptacle and soils the interior of the device in which the brewing unit is arranged. Frequent cleaning of the device becomes necessary.